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People often ask about the difference between psychoanalytic therapy and psychodynamic psychotherapy, and it’s a good question. Both therapies come from the same clinical tradition. They are both reflective and relational type of talk therapy and grounded in the idea that much of what shapes us happens outside of our conscious awareness, often in the early relationships and emotional patterns that stay with us into adult life. But there are some important differences in how each approach works.
Psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy both explore the unconscious forces that shape human life. However, they differ significantly in method, aim, and ethical position.
Psychodynamic psychotherapy applies psychoanalytic ideas within a structured and often time-limited framework. It focuses on recognising and working through relational patterns, emotional struggles, and unconscious defences to foster insight and change.
Psychoanalysis, by contrast, does not begin from a model of adaptation or symptom management. It offers a space for the subject to encounter the unconscious. It is the one that speak through dreams, slips, repetitions, symptoms, and desire. The aim is not to normalise or heal, but to open a space where something singular, previously unknown, can be articulated.
Psychoanalysis requires time, patience, and a willingness to confront what is unknown and transformative.
Psychoanalysis does not begin immediately. Before analysis can commence, a series of preliminary sessions is undertaken.
These initial consultations are an opportunity to speak about the difficulties that have brought you here. Whether those involve trauma, sexual problems, obsessive thoughts, compulsive behaviours, emotional dysregulation, anger outbursts, or other forms of distress that may be harder to name. Many people also come without a clear reason, but with a persistent sense that something is wrong, stuck, or repetitive.
The work in these early sessions often begins by tracing your history. We will be moving from childhood and adolescence through to the present. We want to hear how significant experiences, relationships, and turning points are spoken and remembered. Particular attention is paid not only to the content of what is said, but to how speech unfolds: its rhythms, contradictions, gaps, or repetitions.
Although diagnostic considerations or the idea of a treatment plan may arise, particularly in relation to other forms of care, these are not the aim of the preliminary sessions. Rather, this phase of work opens a space in which the unconscious may begin to emerge. What appears here helps determine whether psychoanalysis is the appropriate path.
At the conclusion of the preliminary work, we consider:
If psychoanalysis does not appear to be suitable at this stage, other forms of therapeutic work (like psychodynamic psychotherapy) may be recommended.
Taking the first step can be hard, but you don’t have to do it alone. If you’re ready for deeper healing and lasting growth, a psychoanalyst and psychotherapist can help you reconnect with your true self and live the life you deserve.
In psychoanalysis, you are invited to speak as freely as possible. You can speak without censorship, self-monitoring, or the demand to be coherent. There is no fixed agenda or checklist. A memory, a slip of the tongue, a hesitation, or a silence can each be taken as meaningful.
Sessions are not about following a treatment plan or solving problems. Rather, the focus is on what emerges in speech: symptoms, dreams, bodily complaints, and unconscious formations that may not make sense immediately but carry significance over time.
Sessions are often of variable duration, ending at a moment when something essential has been said or cut short, depending on the structure of the work.
Over time, psychoanalysis can bring about a shift in your relation to your symptom, your history, and your desire. Many people do experience something of a transformation or healing in the process, not by mastering, erasing, or offering a cure. What matters is that what has remained unspoken may begin to find its place in language.
How many preliminary sessions are needed?
Typically between 2–5 sessions, depending on the nature of what emerges and how speech begins to take shape.
How often are psychoanalytic sessions?
Sessions may take place one to three times per week, depending on the structure of the case and the analytic frame established.
What happens if psychoanalysis is not suitable?
If analysis is not appropriate at this time, alternative forms of therapeutic work like psychodynamic psychotherapy can be discussed.
Psychoanalysis is not reserved for those with a specific diagnosis. Rather, it is suited to anyone who experiences a repetition that defies explanation. This can be a deadlock in relationships or work, or a symptom that no longer makes sense through conventional frames.
It may be appropriate if:
Rather than providing coping strategies, psychoanalysis opens a space to work through what underlies these experiences.
If you are drawn to this way of working, the first step is to arrange an initial consultation.
In a series of preliminary sessions, we will explore how your difficulties present themselves, how your speech begins to unfold, and whether there is a desire to begin analytic work.
Should psychoanalysis prove appropriate, we will determine together the frame in which it may take place.
You are welcome to make contact.
